Do you suffer from nomophobia, the fear of not being with your cell phone? About two-thirds of adults are afflicted with this phobia, and research shows that nomophobia and cell phone addiction are as severe, if not more so, in college students.
Freshman Isabella Vavra is no stranger to this behavior among college students. "When I walk down Sheridan Road, I don't necessarily see people on their phones, but most people have their headphones in and are tuned out to the world," she said.
On average, Americans spend five hours per day on their phones. This statistic is drastically worse for college students; a Baylor University study found that female college students spend 10 hours per day on their phones and male students spend eight. With this many hours devoted to phone usage, the consequences are significant, especially for the brain.
The brain treats cell phones like significant others. This is a bizarre - yet fitting - way to realize how powerful phones are to the psyche. If a romantic partner is lost, it is common to experience a sense of loss, perhaps grief. Replace that significant other with watching your cell phone shatter on the floor, and the reaction is not too different. In fact, considering that students arguably spend more time with their cellphones than with their significant others, the psychological reaction to losing a cell phone and the connectivity and other features associated with it could be even more severe than the loss of a significant other.
Our brains work very hard, and need the occasional rest; sleep is vital for maintaining optimal health. Yet cell phone use causes significant deterioration of sleep quality. This is because the blue light emitted by cell phones affects melatonin, the hormone that causes sleep. When melatonin levels are impacted, the body's circadian rhythm, its natural clock, is negatively affected. Research has shown that this not only affects sleep but also the functionality of organs that depend on the circadian rhythm. In effect, the damage to the circadian rhythm can have potentially devastating consequences on the body.
To counter the effects of cellphone use on the circadian rhythm, Apple added "Night Shift" to their devices to filter out blue light at night. The goal of this new feature is to reduce the effects of blue light on melatonin. While this innovation is meritorious in its efforts to improve the sleeping conditions of the populace, research shows that stimuli from interactions on electronics, including reading emails and texting, prevent sleep. Effectively, even if "Night Shift" works, the act of interacting on one's phone will likely disrupt sleep anyways.
There is a significant correlation between poor mental health and college students. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, "[m]ore than 80 percent of college students felt overwhelmed by all they had to do in the past year and 45 percent have felt things were hopeless." In addition, about 10 percent of students are diagnosed or treated with anxiety with an another 10 percent diagnosed or treated with depression. Overall, three-quarters of all mental health disorders begin by the age of 24.
This problem has been worsening. A survey by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors found that almost three-quarters of counseling center directors observed an increase in the severity of mental health concerns as well as related behavior. One contributing factor could be that students do not seek help with fear of stigma being the primary reason. Only 1.4% of directors observed a decrease in mental health concerns on campus.
What does this have to do with cell phone use? Those with poor mental health are more likely to engage in addictive cell phone behaviors. These include checking one's phone constantly as a coping mechanism for stress as well as contacting others as a social distraction. Additionally, a rather strange symptom of phone addiction is phantom cell phone vibration syndrome, which is when one perceives that their phone has vibrated but actually has not; it was merely an illusion.
Junior Ava Jordan Serra can attest to these behaviors. This school year, she has reduced her daily phone use to one hour of active use like texting, with an additional four hours of passive use, such as listening to music. "I would just be sitting somewhere and my phone would vibrate, and I would check, and there would be no notifications. I uninstalled a bunch of apps on my phone, and I've had my phone on "Do Not Disturb" the whole quarter to stop being so available to people. People get mad when they notice that I'm on Messenger and I don't respond to messages. It's stressful."
Studies show that students engage in habits involuntarily when they encounter negative feelings, including cell phone use. Such habits reduce negative feelings like worry and anxiety. Cruelly, the very electronic devices that contribute to poor mental health are also capable of being used as coping mechanisms to alleviate the symptoms of a poor state of mental health. There are relationships between cell phone addiction and depression as well as chronic stress, anxiety, and somatization, the exhibition of physical symptoms caused by underlying psychological problems.
The psychological effects of cell phone use on college students have been the subject of expansive research. Yes, cell phones are an essential part of college life. But the most valuable part of the college student, the brain, needs a serious break, and it has been telling millions of students this for far too long.